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Photo challenge 137. Weeds and wildflowers. As the saying goes, 'One person's weeds are another person's wildflowers'. That is certainly true in my gardens. My flowerbeds are sort of like an English country garden. I have over the years dug a number of plants out of ditches because they had such pretty flowers...among them pink and white mallow, and the purple 'dame's rocket'. They really thrive in my gardens and re-seed themselves constantly, so I always have lots of color! But I have not even included them in my photos as there are so many other interesting weeds and wildflowers close to my home. So let's see what grows wild in your part of the world! (I told you this would be an easy challenge!)

Photo Challenge Rules:
~ Have FUN with this! There are no right or wrong photos.
~ Take as many pics as you want, share the few you like best.
~ Please share only current photos, taken after the challenge was issued.
~ We CANNOT upload our photos to the SCS galleries. You may upload them as an attachment or host them from your blog or any online photo hosting site. Just provide the direct link to the photo in your post and also make sure that it is not from a password protected album.
~ Just a reminder that we are a family-friendly site if you are sending others off this site to view photos in an album hosted elsewhere.
~ You can jump in and start any of the photo challenges at anytime..
~ Again - HAVE FUN

My photos 1) a vine sort of like a morning glory that blooms in the ditch
2) cinquefoil, 3) I don't know that this weed is called but it sure has pretty flowers! 4) ragweed 5) teasel

Some more photos. All of these photos were taken within a 3 minute walk of my house, in two separate ditches. Only the feverfew photo was taken in my flowerbed.
1) purple loose strife, which has been declared a noxious weed (but it's so pretty!) It takes over swamps and eliminates them so that certain wildlife cannot live there anymore. We have been banned from having these plants in our gardens.
2) common thistle (our town's symbolic flower)
3) feverfew, that I dug out of the ditch and is now thriving in my flowerbeds
4) a vine, don't know the name, but it is pretty
5) goldenrod

Cool challenge, Ina. I'll try to fit in a walk along the canal this week and see what I can find in the wild.
I bought a pack of Californian wildflower seeds, so while the sun is shining I'll just go and grab a few pictures of what came up.

OK, so apparently all these class as wildflowers in California...I actually had taken a whole bunch of photos yesterday, because my good camera had just come back from being repaired, but I went out and took more this afternoon.
Two types of marigold / calendula. I should have looked more carefully and tidied a dead flower out of one photo.
The Five Spot (nemophila maculata) is definitely indigenous to CA. I'd never seen it before and didn't know what it was, but somebody identified it for me on my blog. It's past its best by now, but here it is anyway.
Lots of little heartsease / Johnny Jump Up. Mostly the purple and yellow, but there's just one gorgeous orangey rusty one.

Lots of lovely flowers, Sabrina! I'm especially partial to the rust colored johnny-jump-up. I have the yellow/purple ones in my lawn in the spring, but they are long gone now! The calendulas have sweet memories for me. My mom used to grow them and collect seeds every fall, so she would be able to sow them again next year. She usually had a whole section of her flowerbed devoted to them and they were such a nice punch of color!
Of your last group of photos, the first and second flowers, are they osteopermum?

LOving everyone's flowers....I would have taken photos of the weeds in my yard but even they dried up and died in this drought.......We received an inch of rain 10 days ago and the pig weeds went crazy....had to mow them down this morning.

Of your last group of photos, the first and second flowers, are they osteopermum?

I don't think so - the leaf shape is different to the ones my mother had, and both the leaves and stems are quite fleshy - almost more like a succulent. I'll sit down with my flower book when I have time, because I'd quite like to know what they are.

LOving everyone's flowers....I would have taken photos of the weeds in my yard but even they dried up and died in this drought.......We received an inch of rain 10 days ago and the pig weeds went crazy....had to mow them down this morning.

Too bad you mowed them down....I'd love to see a photo of them, as I don't have any idea what they look like!

O.K Here's a weed in my flowerbed that I can't identify. It has sort of a succulent leaf, the plant grows close to the ground and it is very prolific. I no sooner pull them up and they are growing again! Can someone tell me what it is called?

Love the depth of field in the second photo, Angela, and the first one is amazing. The barn frames those flowers beautifully.

I had to go in to the city centre this morning before work, and as I walked back across the city I took these photos in the grounds of one of the churches (well, through the rails!). I posted a photo of the church at some stage, it's the one where my sister got married. I must go in to the visitor centre some time - it's the oldest parish church in Dublin still in use, founded in 1190.
You can see that this isn't really a garden, just a patch of wildflowers and weeds left to do their own thing. Some may have been sown on purpose, but the valerian grows all round town, and nobody, surely, would ever plant bindweed. There looked to be some ragwort, too.

We went for a walk along the canal this evening, so I took a few shots...
Some scabious, a bramble in flower (although I also picked and ate some blackberries along the way), a small thistle and some ragwort.

Angela, I love the framed photo and also the sunny yellow sunflower! Sabrina, I love you pictures in post #15, especially the second one of the pink wildflower and unusual seed pods.
Diana, that pink wildflower is so pretty.
Audrey, I love you middle photo with the green week, contrasting so nicely with the red stones. That brittlebrush is huge!

Ina, I think my photo might make the brittlebush larger than what it is and perhaps not having to fight any other plants for space it could be larger than normal. It's about three feet tall and probably doesn't get that tall in the "wilderness". Some bird or the wind or something must have dropped a seed in that spot. The bush is quite pretty when it is blooming with its little yellow flowers.

It's not exactly either a weed or a wildflower in our part of the country, but down in the southwest where my sister and my dad live, crocosmia is totally invasive and the hedgerows are full of it. I remember walking along a road near my sister's and the corms were so thick that they were falling out of the bank at the side of the road. I once grew the more cultivated red one - it's the orange ones that have gone totally native down in Kerry and Cork.

My kids went back to school day and I'm back to working nights so I'll have more time to play in the challenges and check out everyones photos

1.)Fireweed, a wildflower that can be found all over Alaska. It blooms from the bottom to the top and its said that when the last flower blooms winter is only weeks away. The petals of the flowers are used to make jams and jellies.

2.)The trail along the railroad tracks behind my house. You can see fireweed as far as the eye can see. Some of the plants reach over 5' tall.

3.) Butter and Eggs, which is considered a nonnative, invasive plant to Alaska.

4.)Nootka Lupine, which I have growing on the edge of the woods that surround my yard

5.)Tall Jacobs Ladder. I think I found this in the ditch in front of my neighbors house, but I cant remember for sure.

Ah Lisa, all your wildflowers are so beautiful! I like the butter and eggs the best! It almost looks like your fireweed and our purple loosestrife are very similar. I'll have to get a close up photo of one of ours.

I like the butter and eggs best too.
We get the fireweed here too, only it's called Rosebay Willowherb. I've seen it in France, and it's only now that I look up the Latin name (Epilobium angustifloium) that I see where the French name - epilobes - comes from .
I wish lupins would grow wild here!!

I'd have loved to go to the park today - a bright, sunshine and blue skies day. But there's something wrong with the electrics in the car so I can't adjust the mirrors, and the hand-brake needs adjusting too so I settled for a walk along the canal.
The ivy is in full bloom right now.
I also spotted some late clover, too.

We have a friend who once left his bee hives too near a lot of ivy. It was vile honey - he had to throw it out!! It's a funny plant because it flowers this time of year and the berries are only ripening after Christmas and into spring. I suppose it supplies nectar to the late bees, and extra berries for the birds when most of the autumn berries are all eaten up.